7.27.26 Global Debt; Lower’s Paul Zinn on Retail Lending; Factors Driving Rates

Robbie ChrismanWelcome to the Chrisman Commentary, Daily Mortgage News Podcast. I'm your host, Robbie Chrisman. Topics on today's episode include global debt burdens, why geopolitical tensions are dominating mortgage and fixed income markets still, and my interview with Lower's Paul Zins on how successful retail mortgage teams are staying competitive by evolving their sales strategies, investing in recruiting, and developing top loan officers, as well as positioning their organizations to capitalize now and in the future. Here, take a listen to a low preview. We do know that there are some inevitabilities in the mortgage space, and one of those is that we are in a very cyclical industry. And hopefully we're coming toward the another good side of the market cycle here. We've seen profitability tick up. We've seen origination volumes tick up. How can loan originators prepare now for the next lower rate environment and position themselves to maximize that opportunity? Paul ZinsYou know, if I could have a bullhorn and megaphone and talk to them across the nation, it's this is it. Robbie ChrismanThis is your bullhorn. Let's hear it. Paul ZinsThis is it. There's no greater platform than this one. And I'm taking advantage of it. You must talk to everybody in your marketplace who has access to consumer. They need to know you like you, trust you. You need to be in front of them. You need to add value. You need to give before you expect to receive. You need to show up and be present. It's the most fundamental and simple thing to do. And so when that market flips, they're not going to spend their time trying to figure out which originator do it do you use. They need to know who do who do I trust who can get this deal done now because my pipeline is exploding. Now's the time to do that. We build, it's the Noah's Ark thing. Build the ARC before the rain comes. Robbie ChrismanThanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Experian Verify, which provides mortgage lenders with automated income, employment, identity, and asset verification solutions that help accelerate underwriting while reducing fraud risk and manual documentation. There are many who will tell you that the amount of debt, both in the US and around the world, is not a game. It's a gamble. In 2025, the International Monetary Fund reported that across the globe, companies, households, and countries had amassed $251 trillion in debt. Looking toward the end of 2026, JP Morgan has warned that interest rates on such borrowings are set to spike, owing largely to dwindling populations and diminishing fiscal discipline. There are supposedly 60s that will shape the global economy under the current and surrounding administrations. Deficits, deregulation, decarbonization, depopulation, deglobalization, and de-dollarization. Of these factors, two in particular will put upward pressure on borrowing rates around the world. Deficits and depopulation. How might that impact your borrowers? Or will we continue to ignore things like deficits? Geopolitical tensions dominated mortgage and fixed income markets last week as escalating conflict between the US and Iran pushed crude oil briefly above $100 per barrel, reigniting inflation concerns and driving a sharp sell-off in both treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities. Treasury yields rose across the curve last week, with markets pr increasingly pricing in the possibility of a surprise Federal Reserve rate hike. Most economists expect policymakers to leave rates unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75% this week, with investors instead focused on Chairman Warsh's comments on inflation, economic growth, and the outlook. Despite stronger than expected domestic economic data, such as new home sales and improving business activity, markets remain overwhelmingly focused on oil prices and geopolitical developments, largely overlooking positive economic fundamentals. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note jumped to its highest level of President Trump's second term, rising 14 basis points over the course of last week, to close at 4.68%. Mortgages underperformed over the course of the week as rising rates triggered extension risk and modest convexity-related selling. Although this did not develop into a full-scale convexity event, widening spreads, longer durations, and weaker specified pool performance created challenging execution conditions for lenders, pushing mortgage rates to their highest levels in roughly a year, and highlighting the sensitivity of MBS valuations to sustained moves higher in interest rates. For today's interview, we wanted to welcome to the show Lower's Paul Zins to talk about how successful retail mortgage teams are staying competitive by evolving their sales strategies, investing in recruiting and developing top loan officers, and positioning their organizations to capitalize not only now, but into the future as well. He's EVP of retail lending and divisional manager at Lower, a modern homeownership platform built to help everyone achieve financial freedom. In his role, he focuses on expanding Lower's retail presence, recruiting top originators, and strengthening production teams nationwide. So you are the EVP of retail lending and a division manager at Lower. I want to talk about how you got into the business in the first place. We were chatting a little bit offline. You were holding a baseball. There's a photo of a guy kid playing baseball behind you. So I assume there's some sports in your background. How did you even hear that a career in the mortgage industry was viable? And how'd you get to where you are today? Paul ZinsLike most of us, I have an MBA in the mortgage industry. Oh, wait, no, I don't. No, no. Neither do you or any of us. No, I I got in entry level. Honestly, um, there was a girl I liked and she worked for the mortgage company. I didn't have nothing going on. I was like, well, let me give that a shot. So I can hang out, hang out with her more. And um it ended up doing really well. I came in as a sales intern, became an originator, moved into leadership. Um, I got my start at PHH. I've been only been with three companies, in fact, my whole career, PH for a decade plus, um, GMAC for a decade plus, and AnnieMac for a decade plus, and Lower will be my fourth. But uh, yeah, no, I tripped in the mortgage business and so glad, so glad I did. Robbie ChrismanHow would you describe the role of EVP of retail lending to somebody not in the industry? Paul ZinsIt should be a role of someone who is a caretaker and a shaper, someone who is setting a vision, shaping the vision, leading the vision, stuff like that. It's the one who goes first. Robbie ChrismanWell, you said it should be that. Paul ZinsWhat is it in practice for you? When I look around, so before Lower, I spent three years doing fractional executive work for IMBs, and folks in this role generally become like this sort of like sales leader, gap stop, police person, touting policy and procedure and spewing data. That's what it seems to fall into, perhaps because that's what they get asked. But they need to be the Moses of their organization, leading the way, setting the vision, and leading by example. Um, so when I explored lower, I shared how I thought this seat should operate. I guess another easy example is it's like it's the quarterback position in an organization. So if you go to any other field and practice out there, there just needs somebody who knows how to call the plays and involved and throwing the ball downfield. Robbie ChrismanSo when we think about retail lending, how would you describe the overall environment today? And I mean that both in terms of what are bar what's borrower sentiment, how are they feeling? What is the the overall landscape for the channel in terms of the products and those sorts of things? And then also I mean it in the sense of how does it compare to different origination channels today? Paul ZinsThe originator level, it's the difference of two extremes. High performers will always high perform no matter their environment. The rest of the population is sort of like been bludgeoned to death from you know the last few years of rate objections and shrinking business and trying to figure out what to do, changing companies, guessing. So kind of like coming out of coming out of this this this stupor and trying to find the new normal. The client experience. I mean, I give you a great example yesterday. I'm at church on Sunday, and and my buddy's like, hey, you do mortgages, right? I'm like, uh huh, yeah. He was describing needing a mortgage, and his his response was like, it wasn't where do I get the best rate? Where do I get the best terms? It was like who can get my deal done? He was like, Oh, yeah, I worked with this bank, and you know, they uh they were they were good with my auto loan, they were good with my credit card. Uh Paul, you think I'm already trying to get the credit with the mortgage? My answer, of course, was no. Clients, borrowers in that community, they're looking for experience of course payment and rate, but it's just experience, and they don't know who to trust anymore between the news, their last experience, and not knowing when to pull the trigger. Um, and then there's the whole referral side, Robbie. I can appreciate mortgage professionals educating real estate professionals on how to do real estate. I guess it's an it's an okay way to open a door, but they just want the next transaction. And so um, that's what they're looking for, how to get in front of somebody and do a deal. So it's it's complex out there, and everybody is is fighting for attention. Robbie ChrismanThat's also the case on the media side of things over here. There's there's so many people competing for a limited amount of people's attention or eyeballs. And it's been interesting to watch the landscape evolve and it pushes us to be better and to push our own products and experiences forward for the people that we work with and work for. When it comes to the retail lending side of things, what are successful teams doing differently in today's market? It seems like everyone says, oh, well, we have a great borrower experience. Oh, well, we have a great product suite. Oh, well, we we have a great corporate culture. Everybody's saying that. What are what are the actual really successful teams doing differently in today's market? Or they're just nailing it. Maybe, maybe they're just nailing it. Who knows? Paul ZinsYeah, everybody's nailing it. Um, I got to write that book. Everybody's nailing it. You know, it's simplification. Platform tools truly, yeah. Oh, they can add a unit or two here and there, and they can buy you an hour back in your day, you know, here and there. I I love it, I believe in it. But end of the day, what are you gonna do with the hour? And it's the simplification, it's the most direct path to your desired outcome, which is doing another mortgage, helping another family, doing another transaction. And so they're finding that the quickest way to do that. It's like scripts built to remind yourself to ask for the business on every phone call. I was at a big sales leadership conference, thousands of originators said, raise your hand if you uh routinely ask for the business at all these different intersections we named, and like 10% of the room went up. It was like this confession moment. This is what great originators are doing right now. And the second thing they're doing is they're future casting, thinking, you know, I'll just say 2030, 2026 to 2030. They're building systems that may not help them today, but they're gonna help them in the future. And hopefully I get to talk about the future with you here in a few minutes. Can I just say simplification is the path to success? I do it in my business, do it here at lower, do it with my friends, hopefully, folks listening today. Something in that resonates with you. But the simplest path is the most productive path. Robbie ChrismanThat's good. I'll write that down. We'll eat something down from this interview. That'll be good. Paul ZinsSo that'll be our second book. We can co-co-author this. Robbie ChrismanPerfect. Let's do it. You brought up the phrase future, the future. And so we can go there a little bit. How are you seeing the evolution of top origination talent? What are they doing to stay competitive? And I guess, at least from my perspective, it's well, all this automation and technology is freeing people up to focus on relationships, and that that's all well and good. But what's actually moving the needle when it comes to the evolution of people? And what do you view as kind of the future of the origination landscape? Paul ZinsWell, if I was an originator today, I want to join an organization that's building systems for me so I don't have to. I need that next convo with a realtor, I need that next convo with a client, maybe someone I can partner with, but I I don't I can't spend all my time building systems. What I should be spending all my time doing is building for the future. There is a rate environment coming. And Robbie, I do not have a crystal ball over here, but there is a rate environment coming that at some point things will catch fire again. And so if there's anything true in the mortgage business, it's cycles. There's a million levers that indicate when those cycles go up and down, but we can certainly know there'll be another low rate cycle. Who cares how low? But there'll be a point in which everything catches fire. And to the extent you want to participate to the maximum, great originators in 2026 are making sure that realtors know who they are. That agent in your in your market who does 30 buy sides a today is going to do 60 buy sides in a future market just because the market went up, that rising tide that lifts everybody. That database that you have that has X amount of consumers, it needs X times 10 if you want to participate to the maximum. From a recruiting perspective, every animal SID associated to your organization today is doing X in volume. They're gonna 3X, 5X, whatever the number is, you know, in a future market. And so anybody who accuses themselves of being a business developer needs to collect as many eyes who know you, like you, trust you that you're semi-regularly in front of so that when that future market pops, you've got the biggest and widest net to participate to your maximum. Um, I'm very passionate about that topic. It's a big focus at lower. It should be a big focus for all of us because that that market is coming. I'll leave it to you, Robbie, uh, to determine when that market comes. Robbie ChrismanIt seems like there's been a stratification almost. There are companies that are really pushing the envelope forward. It seems like that market is there for some and others are being left in the wake, but we haven't necessarily seen it create an environment where where companies are shuttering their doors. Obviously, consolidation has been a frequent topic out there. So I I guess the the my thought is yes, we're moving toward that. At what point does it actually change the overall landscape? And I don't necessarily have an answer for that today. When we look at talent, you said good talent is always going to do well, and I agree with that. But there's also a huge side of the business that that has to do with recruiting, developing. Obviously, you as a leader can make a difference as a quarterback of the team. What are we seeing? And those, those, I guess, are three different silos. When it comes to the recruiting landscape, what are you seeing out there? When it comes to development, what are you doing to develop your own talent? And then when it comes to leading in general, especially through what's still by by certain measures, a challenging market, how do you feel like you can make a difference? So recruiting, developing, leading. Paul ZinsRecruiting is a topic I love. I do love mortgage recruiting. Um, for all the jokes out there and commentary, I I love it because when you find aspirational people who are willing to like engage and explore how I might get to some place, you can have a very honest conversation. And the recruiting landscape is hungry for honest conversations, not bumper stickers and taglines and phrases and promises. And so the ones who do really well out there are the ones who are um looking at somebody and and saying, I see you as someone who could get here. How might we do that together? And just have that conversation over the course of time, be surprised on how fruitful that'll be. Do you need to give them money to make it worth your while? Yeah, probably. Juice needs to be worth the squeeze, minimize risk on their behalf. But the second thing is the ones who are making move for a better CRM or pick up a product or two, those are incremental gains to the organization. Those would be incremental gains to the originator. It's the ones, you know, where there's substantial gain, which leads to the next topic you brought up, which is what are you doing to develop talent? For me and and us at lower, it just boils down to the most direct line to what matters to originators that that is more referral sources. If I improve my rate by a quarter, I may pick up a deal or two that I would have not had before. That deal or two is great, but that doesn't change my life. But if I picked up three to five new referral sources that I don't currently work with, that is substantial to my business, substantial to my revenue, substantial to my life. About a year ago, uh Lower purchased a Zillow competitor called Mavoto, uh, which basically is a consumer portal for real estate search, and as a result, um creates buyer leads. And so the way that works in practice, in short, is we have buyers who need realtors and realtors who need originators, and we can put the ecosystem together right now. Uh, here today in New Jersey, where I live, we've got about 600 buyer leads available that do not have originator or realtor attached to them. So we can recruit to that. And it's tremendous. So if you're a $20 million producer walking in the door, would you like a real estate team that does another 40 million themselves that you don't currently work with? Would that be helpful or not? And so that's the most direct line to development. I could teach them how to use Claude, I can make them a guideline guru, I could help them manage their time extremely well throughout the course of a week. I can hold them accountable, I can be their best friend and yes, and do all those things, but there's nothing that has more direct impact than, hey, here's a realtor who needs to work with you because we have buyer leads who need to work with them. Robbie ChrismanAnd the third part of that was when it comes to leading teams, where do you feel like leaders can really make a difference? Paul ZinsThey gotta go first. John Maxwell says leaders um know the way, they show the way, and they actually go the way. So those of us in leadership, like we got to go first. We got to take people with us. Uh so what does that mean? It means go into the market and do the real estate presentations, it means get on the recruiting calls, it means jump inside the sales meeting and help unlock some things for your teams. Um, it means go go try some things before you roll it out to somebody. Leaders who go first and and sort of get boots on the ground seem to get the best results. Robbie ChrismanI've always found that the best leaders lead from the front. So I love hearing you say that. I really enjoyed this, Paul. This is this has been fantastic. I wish you and Lower the best of luck, and um, I'm sure you'll you'll do great. Uh appreciate you making the time. Thank you. Paul ZinsAppreciate you. Love, love what you're doing. It's helping us all. Thanks so much. Robbie ChrismanAttention now shifts to this week's Federal Reserve meeting where policymakers are expected to leave rates unchanged, but maintain a cautious stance as inflation risks remain elevated. For mortgage investors, the key variables will be whether energy prices stabilize, geopolitical tensions ease, and mortgage-backed security spreads hold their recent widening without triggering a more pronounced round of convexity-driven selling. Market focus will also be on a pivotal slate of economic data, including poor core PCE inflation, personal spending, and second quarter GDP. Today's economic calendar includes June durable orders, a treasury auction of $69 billion of two-year notes, and another treasury auction of $70 billion of five-year notes. We begin the week with agency MBS prices, an eighth to a quarter better than Friday's close, the two-year yielding 4.29%, and the ten-year yielding 4.63% after closing last week at 4.68%. Let's wrap up with a joke and some housekeeping. There was once a village whose mayors were all named Benny and had magnificent beards. Legend held that if a mayor shaved his beard off, an ancient curse would transform him into a piece of pottery. Centuries passed, and every Benny was a fair and wise mayor and never shaved their beards. But one summer their land was struck by a terrible heat wave. All the men of the village shaved their beards, but Benny couldn't. After days and days of sweltering temperatures, Benny could no longer stand it. He summoned the village barber and had his beard shaved right down to the skin. The people of the village barely had time to gaze upon their newly shorn mayor's face before he disappeared in a puff of smoke, transformed into a vase. And so it was on that day the villagers knew the curse was true. A Benny shaved is a Benny earned. Thanks again to Experian Verify for sponsoring this week's podcasts. Experian Verify provides mortgage lenders with automated income, employment, identity, and asset verification solutions that help accelerate underwriting while reducing fraud risk and manual documentation.